Header Backround Color

[Jamie V]

Hello, I'm looking for some help with my header color. I'm very, very new to this (what comes before rookie, thats me)

In my header template I have something that looks like this.

<table width="96%" background="images/gradients/gradient_thead.gif" align="center">

<tr>
<td align="left"><a href="http://www.lightningrodder.com/forum"><span style="color:white;"><b>Lightning Rodder Forums</b></a> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align="left center"><a href="http://www.delvallo.net/forum/index.php"><span style="color:white;"><b>Home</b></a> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="http://delvallo.net/gallery/"><span style="color:white;"><b>Gallery</b></a> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align="right"><a href="http://www.nloc.net/vbforum"><span style="color:white;"><b>NLOC Forums</b></a> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
</td>
</tr>
</table>

Everything woks fine but where it says background="images/gradients/gradient_thead.gif" that makes a blue color strip. I want a red color (#D40000) but I can't do that. I tried removing the images/gradients/gradient_thead.gif and that does away with the blue backround (thats how I have it now) and then I tried changing the<tr> to <tr Bgcolor="#D40000"> and that changes the exact part to the exact color but it shows the breaks in the header (where it is "left", "left center", and "right").

Does any of this make sense?

Jamie